


Cycle Plays

by anniesburg



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Bath Sex, Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Marriage Discussion, One-Shot Collection, Post-A Thief's End, Prison Talk, Sam's Homecoming Goes Well, Trauma, death mentions, injury mentions, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-06-23 20:53:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: Nine rules to break when you're romancing a Drake.





	1. Don't Let Him In

**Author's Note:**

> basically sammy finds his old girlfriend to sleep next to for several, consistently interrupted years. this is a detailed documentation of events.

Between the two of you, there have been twin, cheap engagement rings. Neither were exchanged, tossed from piers or planes still in their faux-velvet boxes. One year you thought the better of it, another, he did. 

Your relationship spans twenty years with an awkward, painful splicing in the near-middle. Fifteen years would be ample time to fall out of love with someone. You doubt anyone could blame you. It would be like slipping from a bath gone tepid, or surviving a couple bullet wounds. Extracting him like a foreign, malignant object would be understandable to anyone. 

So, nobody knows. Nobody knows why you politely decline date after date, carrying his corpse in your sternum like a forgotten piece of metal. Your figurative attachment to him hurts the longer than he’s gone. It’s a mantra at this point, you just need more time to forget. You throw yourself into meaningless busywork to ignore the ache of loss. 

You consider that passion and grief are the real opposites. It’s hard to find the spark when you never got the chance to resolve the fight to end them all. The fight that made him run faster from you than he already was. It was the fight that made sure you didn’t speak to him until the prison, and maybe ensured that you never would again. 

He was shot dead. It’s all in Nate’s email. 

The stinging, sharp sensation of a thread pulled taught just ahead of your heart snaps very suddenly. As thin and strong as fishline, your love for him would be cut by no other hand. It doesn’t occur to you that Sam might ever be able to free you. 

But he does. With a hello. 

Nine at night on Friday sees you simultaneously heartbroken and healed in the time it takes for you to open a door. He greets you like he left yesterday, you almost expect him to hold out a half-wilted bouquet as an apology present. His hands are empty, and yours fly to cover your open mouth. 

There’s no sound mournful enough. The wail that leaves you is reserved for grieving widows at wakes. It doesn’t occur to you, immediately, that he’s alive. Only that now you might get to say goodbye. 

He doesn’t know what to say in response to that. His face (he’s world-worn, why has he aged if he’s not even real) falls and he backs away from the door. 

“I get it,” he starts, one of your hand drops to your chest. Cardiac arrest is not an impending threat. “If I’m not welcome, I’ll go and—”

“Stop,” is all you manage before your heart-bound hand extends. It shakes in the air and pushes against his shoulder. He’s flesh, solid through. “Don’t. You’re alive.” 

“It seems I am,” he sounds so cool about this. “Sorry for the delay, had a family reunion. A little adventure, you know me.” 

“With Nathan?” You sound hollow, “Oh, good. Your death hurt him.” 

“Talk to him much, do you?” Sam replies, sounding more curious than accusatory. 

Your eyes have glazed over, but they snap to his in an instant. Your breath catches in your throat as you try to fumble with the words. Nate could communicate, intentionally or not, through text that he was broken beyond repair by the loss of his elder brother. His grief was a weight never abated. 

“One email,” you try, “no funeral.” 

“Hey,” Sam starts when the tears come. You can’t help it, nor can you tell if they’re definitively sad or happy in nature. There’s nothing like grieving for lost time. “M’sorry I took so long.” 

He steps forward and holds out his arms like he’s forgotten how to wrap you up in them. It doesn’t occur to you right away, his forward shuffle and awkward arm placement. Sam doesn’t know what he’s doing any more. 

“You’re not dead,” you sigh into the curve of his neck. You press your forehead to where there’s a pulse and take in shuddering lungfuls of air. 

He’s alive. It wouldn’t do to faint at random in front of him. 

“I can’t imagine that’s an easy thing to process,” his voice still sounds like a ragged oil slick, drenched in too many cigarettes but genuine. He had a heart the last time you saw him, seems he still does. 

You grip his back, your fingers claw at the denim and fur like they’re trying to find his skin. Rending fabric is impossible, but it pulls him close to you. You can hear his heart thundering away like he’s under attack. 

Sam still smells the same, which even you can admit is an odd thing to realize. But you shove your nose against his neck, kissing over a handful of bird outlines before you can stop yourself. He stiffens in your arms, pushing you gently back by the shoulders. 

“Woah, woah—” he sounds cautious, unsure. “Let the shock wear off for a second, okay?”

“It hurt worse,” you start, “every year you were gone. It hurt so much worse.” It’s a bold confession, one you expect him to shrink from. Instead, he looks penitent. 

“I’m sorry, I really am,” he doesn’t fumble for words. You wonder just how long he’s been standing outside that door, practicing. “and I know it’ll take a while to prove it, but—”

“No,” you cut him off, “you don’t have to prove a thing.” Your hand drops to cover his. His fingers are warm, perhaps rougher than you remember him. You lead Sam backwards, past your threshold. “Come in, tell me everything.”

He stiffens every time your fingers find their way under his shirt. The pad of your index finger circling bullet holes should not be this familiar, this much of a comfort. They’re old scars, you figure you’ve got a whole lot of loving to do to make up for lost time. 

Sam tells you everything, even the parts he obfuscated for Nathan. It feels odd, wrong to lie to his brother more freely than you. But it’s like you noted earlier; penitent thief. Losing Nate isn’t going to happen, not in the way he thought he might. But losing you again, that’s possible. That could be real. 

“I was gonna ask you to marry me, before you left,” you mumble when the story’s all done. It’s a big confession. He’s half-leaning against your shoulder, now, revelling in all this intimacy. The couch is new, pretty nice, he wants to dissolve into the surrounding comfort.

“Huh. That’s somethin’, so was I,” he replies. You turn your head, looking at him with a bemused smile.

“Really? I never thought you were the type say yes,” you look at him so fondly, it makes his heart ache. Sam drops his eyes to your lap, where one of his hands is cradled in both of yours.

“I threw the goddamn ring out the plane window,” he refuses to sound choked up about it. It was the right decision.

“I threw mine off the dock down the street. I’m sorry, too,” Sam can believe it. He looks at you again, dismally sad but still so happy to see him. It’s enough to break harts. 

“Look at us, huh? Good thing we’re great at this relationship shit,” he jokes because he wants to see you smile again, it works. 

You rest your cheek atop his head for a second, fondly bumping against him. And then you turn, there’s a kiss pressed to his hairline. That’s good, he thinks, do that again. You don’t. 

“I don’t think I want to get married now,” you continue, sounding nevertheless wistful. Sam straightens up, pulling himself from you a fraction. 

“Oh, no. God, no. I was young’n kinda—” he’s on the defensive. You cut him off again with eyes very close to watery again. You’re still holding his hand, but he gets an eyeful of your sudden fear.

“But I don’t think I’m gonna last much longer without you, Sammy,” he’s ready for the fresh wave of tears. They don’t come. Instead, he’s left gaping at you while your lip trembles. Another big confession

“Jesus,” he exhales. Your hands are squeezing his, pulling away would give the wrong idea. But you drop his hand before he can breathe another word. 

“I’m sorry,” you shift, turning from him. He can’t allow that. His warm, rough hand on your knee pulls you from a self-pitying stupor. 

“Don’t be, baby,” despite his earlier misgivings with touch, he angles himself towards you. 

“You didn’t tell me you were alive for two of those fifteen years. Am I wrong to hope you’re not just gonna leave after letting me know now?” It’s a sucker punch to his gut, how clear it is that you’re sorry you didn’t go with him so long ago. 

“No, you’re not. But you know who I am— was—” he doesn’t mind when you cut him off, it’s like old times. And you’re wrong, this time. 

“No ties—” you start. His turn to cut you off with a look, applying affectionate pressure to your knee.

“No bein’ tied down, there’s a difference,” he means it. Your heavy expression shifts to understanding.

“Thank god,” Sam’s not quite sure he was meant to hear that, but it ignites in him a kind of frenzied hope that you must know very well by now.

“You mean that? You’d take me back?” He asks. 

“If you’d take me back after all I said,” you admit. It’s good to hear, but he winces at the memory of everything he yelled at you. 

“I never wanna see your goddamn face again didn’t age too well, I take it?” Another joke, another desperate attempt to find your smile. You allow him to. 

“Kiss me, please,” you sigh with a pointed look at his lips. Sam’s other hand goes to the small of your back, pulling you to him without hesitation.

“Come ‘ere,”

Your lips on his are just as startlingly unfamiliar and perfect as when they touched his neck. In an instant, Sam’s almost sorry he gave this good feeling up for gold. Almost. 

You melt so easily against him, like your pain goes up in smoke. It hasn’t, neither as his, but he could get used to this. He could definitely get used to your warm, little hands on either side of his face. Your thumb brushes an old scar on his cheekbone, over where broken glass and fists broke his skin. 

Sam never thought he could be this content with exploring charted territory.


	2. Avoid Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not super proud of this one but we deal. sam deserves a lot of hugs imo.

He’s loved many warm bodies in his own way. He’s slumped over them after frenzied acts that would make the nuns at St. Francis wish they’d locked him up tighter.

But the weight of another at his front is a fleeting pleasure, bookended by meaningless interaction. The seduction has a habit of being blandly interesting, a bit of sport he’ll happily indulge in to get to the good part. But it ends, it always does. They rise, they tug on their clothes and they leave him. Or he does, while they look on with thinly-veiled disappointment.

Sam can’t count how many times people expected him to be different.

It’s not like he ever expected much from anyone he brought home. A nice romp to satisfy an ache in him does a word of good, but these were never the actions of a man looking to find enduring romance. Just a little fun, that’s all. Who doesn’t love a game?

Until you. You stumbled home with him and flit frequently over his threshold, into his bed and back again. When it was uncommon for him to see the same face twice, you held him like no other.

Genuine delight and satisfaction were all he ever saw in your eyes. Nothing in his life was quite perfect, nothing would be until he made his mark on the world. But what he had with you was uncommonly good.

Your eyes carry crow’s feet now, just around the edges. And they’re not exclusively happy, you seem to be running doubts through your mind as you approach the bed.

The mattress creaks under your knee as it did when he fell onto it. Sam’s tired from the plane ride and didn’t expect to end up in your arms tonight. Not that he would ever complain.

You look at him incredulously, have been all night. He guesses it must be hard for you to grasp the truth that he’s physically here, that things are so painfully close to how they were before. But the tension’s changed, it’s not as air-light and loving as it once was. You’ve been hurt and so has he. 

“I’m not fucking you,” you state, “not tonight.” Sam doesn’t want to flinch but the impulse is hard-coded into him. A harsh tone could mean many things where he comes from. But you seem only interested in reestablishing boundaries as you sit on the bed. 

“Please, gimme a little credit,” he drawls, “I can barely keep my eyes open,” and that’s definitely true. He’s bed-hopped on his way back to America but nothing feels quite like the setup you got. The sheets still smell like fresh laundry and you, the tether of a memory is uniquely satisfying.

“Okay. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,” you continue with a softer tone. He understands you didn’t mean to be so blunt. He respects it. Sam holds out an arm, trying to be enticing through the overwhelming desire to go to sleep. 

“Consider them dashed,” he teases, “now, get over here,” 

That’s all you need to hear. You’re tired, too, and you lie down with a pointed look at his hand that’s invading your space. This feels familiar, shockingly similar despite time and distance. You decide to accept it, to fall into it how you did with the kiss. Sometimes things don’t change very much, not in every way.

“Roll over, baby,” you say with a slow smile. Sam’s man enough to admit to himself that the hairs on the back of his neck stand up at your tone. Oh, this is gonna be good. 

He closes his eyes for a second and he’s fifteen years younger, aching almost nowhere and dying for the chance to let you hold him. He’s got a couple more scars, now and unwillingness to take his eyes off them who’s become a stranger. He hesitates so he can look at you just a little longer.

“Come on, I’ll do it like I used to,” there’s a teasing lilt in your voice that opens up the floor to jokes. Hallelujah.

“What exactly are we talkin’ about?” He asks to distract from the truth that he hasn’t turned over. “‘Cause you said no funny business, I’m just wanna make sure we understand each other.”

“You’re still the funny one, huh?” You ask, softer than he’s expecting. Sam can’t remember the last time he was spoken to in such a way, he figures nobody’s come close to it since he left you over a decade ago.

You think he’s scared, he can see it on your face. He probably is. But he gives you a heated look, masquerading as boyish surrender before facing away from you.

You shuffle up against him in a way that could put déjà vu to shame. This is the fucking stuff, Sam never tried to purge the memory of how good this feels. It hurt too bad to let go of it, to embrace the idea that he might never have it again.

All the warm bodies and willing arms in the world couldn’t match yours, though he’s tried. He filled the void you left with company that did the job, but not as well as you might’ve. Sam never felt shame for his decisions, his attempts to find you in the way someone else would love him after the relationship had been put to rest. But it never felt right. 

This does, his shaky exhale as he turns his back to you is proof of it.

You move closer still, drawing your knees up just a fraction and curling around him. There’s a thundering heartbeat pressed against his spine, you’re just as nervous. Sam gets a quiet kick out of that, he wonders how many nights of the past decade involved sleepless recollections of him. 

He doesn’t want to think about how pathetic he got after year five. Escape stopped seeming as likely, its monopoly over his dreams was usurped by how much better everything would be with you there. Getting out didn’t matter, he figured he’d barely notice the endless stretches of time and gruelling labour if he had you to return to. He’ll never admit to it, he’d rather die. 

“This all right?” You ask behind him, despite the beating of your heart and the slightly nervous waver in your voice. He grunts. 

“Just like old times,” he confirms. You lean forward and rest your forehead against the back of his neck. Your arms are a comfortable weight snaking around his middle, searching for his hands to hold. 

“Good, you should get some sleep,” Sam feels you press another kiss to his neck, just like when you answered the door. Shit, you’re close enough to feel him shiver this time. He doesn’t know what to do when your continued response is just to hold him tighter. 

“Don’t gotta tell me twice. Sully’s not much of a pilot, he knocked me around the whole flight here,” Sam feels you shift, your chin resting against his shoulder. 

“Sullivan’s still alive?” You ask, brightening significantly. Oh, he thinks, here we go.

“What happened to sleeping?” He teases, your annoyance is nearly audible. “Yeah, he’s still kicking. Asked me how my Portuguese was before we left but hasn’t said much about the job since.”

“Brazil’s nice this time of year. I hope that’s where you’re going,” you sigh into his ear. Sam throws dignity to the wind, he leans against your chest and allows himself to enjoy every moment he has this. “Bring me back something nice.” 

“You’re not—” Sam stops himself, he doesn’t want to know why you’d accept that as readily as you do. Perhaps part of him was hoping you’d hold on to him a little tighter. 

“I’m not gonna fight to keep you here, no,” you explain, “especially when you already said you’d be leaving soon.” 

“I’ll bring you back something shiny,” Sam says, “something solid gold.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” 

Ten minutes of silence, interrupted only by slow breathing ticks away. But Sam’s suddenly seized with the urge to speak again, to clarify. He never considered himself husband material, the type to stay and settle. But to waltz back into your life, love you and leave you in that many steps approaches new heights of reckless endangerment. 

“I always thought I’d settle before Nathan did,” he’s quiet on purpose, not wanting to wake you in case you’ve already fallen asleep. “But I think the marriage thing’s good for him. Elena’s a nice girl.”

“She’ll take care of him,” you promise, “help with that empty feeling you mentioned.”

“Right,” there’s a half-laugh Sam forces. Nathan was transparent about the prevailing dissatisfaction of treasure hunting. What comes after the this job with Sully, more ennui? 

“And as long as you want to visit, I’ll take care of you,” you seem to make a decision over the course of the sentence. Sam’s heart stutters in his chest unpleasantly. 

You would’ve married him once. And he would’ve married you. It’s a pity that time’s passed, but he can admit that he wouldn’t mind being cared for again. He lets out a slow exhale. 

“You mean that?” He twists uncomfortably, painfully aware that his back is killing him, so he can look at you. You dip your head and kiss his cheek. 

“What’d I say about asking stupid questions?” You nudge him back to where he’s most comfortable, Sam’s not about to refuse. He’s getting old, he admits it to himself with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He’s missed out on so much already. 

“But no sex,” he has to joke, just to salvage the situation. Behind him, he hears you groan in frustration. 

“You’re clearly exhausted, Sammy,” you pick your words carefully, “shut up and go to sleep.”

This is in sharp contrast to how you handle him, shuffling nearer-still until it’s physically impossible to get closer. He’s annoyed you, you’re still fond of him. Sam shuts his eyes again, thinking he might try to feel his way back to his former dream. Being twenty-eight and loved unconditionally sounds good right about now.


	3. Let it Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this really fast and never thought it would quite fit with the pacing of this narrative but??? have some healing

Oh, god, he thinks of you. 

He realizes it at three in the morning on a Tuesday night, standing in the yellowish chill of his open refrigerator. Sam scrounges up something to eat when he’s not out with you. He has his own place, he’s not totally useless. 

But every forkful of yesterday’s cold, baked beans scooped from a Tupperware reminds him of how he’d be sitting at a table if you were here. You’d put out napkins for the cutlery, fuss over what dishes go in the washer and realize too late that the thing’s fucking busted. 

Sam doesn’t close the fridge, regardless. He stands there like an idiot, so lonely it makes him stupid. He chews, grimacing only slightly before putting the lid back on the beans and shoving the whole affair back into a freezing prison. The fork gets tossed in the sink. 

If you were here, you’d’ve probably brought wine. The cheap beer and raspberry seltzer he drunks turns your stomach, you told him once, in the same breath that you held out a long-stemmed glass of pinot noir. He took it from you. 

You’d be telling him to get the chocolate out of the goddamn freezer and get over here, that he has movies to catch up on, you’re cold without your man. He cracks open the door above the fridge, it’s dark beyond but he can see the heart-shaped box through it. 

Sam fumbles for the lid with his other hand, tugging it open and snatching up an ovular reason not to call you. He pops it in his mouth and tries not to break his teeth on the frozen strawberry in the centre. 

He’s cold without you, too. 

Still, he’s not quite animal just yet. He secures the lid back on the chocolate and closes the freezer. The kitchen’s your domain at home, your home. And the library, too. Sam doesn’t look at the modest collection of poorly-maintained research books, the ghosts of heist disappointments past. 

How can you care about everything in his old, sad apartment? How can you care about the man who’s sometimes equally sad but not quite as old who lives in it? Sam realizes he could ask you, but to do so would risk rushing back to truth’s numbing embrace. 

Truth is a smug bitch. He met her in a prison cell in a Panamanian jail. She wasn’t real, of course, but she stung him over and over again with the knowledge that he’d been forgotten. That he was dead already, he might even die again in there. 

He held her at night for a fucking decade, always in want of you. But she was a substitute, a disembodied that hurt painfully but still less than the idea of you casting him aside. Sure, he clung to the memory of being in your arms but that doesn’t mean it did him good to relive it all the time.

So he had her. The harsh, agonizing truth that when he got the chance he’d have to run like hell. Run away from here and back to Avery. Eventually, back to you.

Of course, even years after he got out, Sam’s still got a complicated relationship with truth. And it relates badly to you. It’s hard to know what to say, he supposes. 

Hey, beautiful, he’d start off with that. Sam likes how you smile when he calls you beautiful. But where he’d go from there? 

Hey, beautiful, I starved for thirteen years. 

Hey, beautiful, I thought I’d get killed in my sleep. 

Hey, beautiful, three guys jumped me one time. The guards watched as they dug their fingers into the healing bullet holes in my back. 

It makes him sick to think about shoving that in your face and calling it healing. He’s had his rough patches, by god, he has. But they weren’t yours, just like they weren’t his brother’s. 

To think of trying to form sentences, to communicate in a meaningful way gets him tongue-tied. He’s standing in the living room in an undershirt, sweatpants and bare feet. He’s staring at the phone because he wants to try. 

Even if it makes him sick. Even if you don’t understand. Even if trying pushes him headlong back to truth and her frigid arms. 

Sam chews the chocolate when it’s no longer going to cost him a trip to the dentist. He lifts a hand, his back still hurts on cold nights, and he brushes his hair back from his forehead. 

This sucks, love. And that’s what it is. 

The man standing like a fool in the dark realizes that he ran away from you, once. He left you in the dust and he lost you because he didn’t know how to tell you how much he lost. He didn’t know how to let you help ease that hurt. 

So, now there’s a choice. Sam prefers one option, one really good option with little deviance to the plan. He can wait to run again, Victor’s barking up a tree and it won’t take long. Or he can pick up the phone and he can trade all of the stupid words he’s collected for you. 

He could stay with you forever, he realizes, if he let himself. And then even when he was gone, you could hold the truth tight to your chest and know he had been himself with you. It might bring you more comfort than it brought him. 

This isn’t a price to pay. Love has no price. This is only his choice, Sam might keep you either way. He at least considers that. 

But he knows what he has to do. He swallows the congealed chocolate and walks to the landline. Never quite got a handle on his new cellphone, he broke the last six and the one you got him doesn’t even have a keypad. 

Sam punches in your number and holds the phone to his ear, slumps against the wall like he’s lost all the fight. It rings once and you pick up. 

“Hey, beautiful,” he says into the receiver. 

“Hey yourself, honey,” you reply with a smiling voice. But you can pick through two words like a magpie looking for glitter. “Everything okay?” 

“I’m—” shit, he stops himself. He exhales. “Havin’ a rough night, that’s all.”

“Missing me?” You ask, prodding him with humour in a way that he appreciates. 

“Actually,” he pauses again. It confirms for you that something’s really up. “Yeah, I’m missin’ you.” 

“Poor baby,” you coo, though knowing full well he’s slinked off somewhere dark and sad. “Gimme a second to throw on a jacket, I’ll come visit you.” 

“Wait,” he says, “just a second. I— there’s some stuff— I don’t think I could say it to your face.”

“Sammy, what’s up?” You try. “You could tell me anything.”

“I know I could,” he replies, “so I guess I am.” There’s a harsh inhale on the other end of the phone, you listen to him struggle breathe just as he struggles to find words. “I’m fucked up.” 

“Uh-huh,” you say. But it’s not quite the dismissing tone he expected. It’s acceptance. “Tell me how, babe. I don’t cry easy.” 

“Yeah you do,” he grins despite himself, “I make you cry sometimes.” 

“That doesn’t count, it’s just me being stupid,” you defend. He wants to argue that but doesn’t. “I’m not being stupid now, I’m ready to listen. No tears, I promise.” 

“It’s okay,” he says, “I— uh— prison was a bad fuckin’ time.”

You chime in when necessary, making noises of understanding and offering gentle apologies for what he saw. None of it was your fault, he stopped reminding you after sorry number four. Sam seems to accept that he won’t get closure any other way, not unless you tell him what he’s always wanted to hear. 

You’re sorry you didn’t run after him. You’re sorry he got shot. Your sorry Rafe was a prick. You’re so sorry, for everything,

Sam stands in his living room with you, talking for hours. He tears up a couple times, maybe, but it all blurs together. He’s reminded through the harsh sadness of reliving great evil that you’ve always been good at alchemizing his misery. 

It weighs on his chest a little less. It’s not painless to breath, but it’s easier.


	4. Don't Make a Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this sucks but finally there's porn!!

He slouches back to you from places so deeply alien to the world you’ve shown him. Sam’s not really thinking about anything, but he takes the stairs to the third floor of your stuffy apartment building two at a time. 

If he were thinking, he’d consider that toiling under hot sun in search of gold pales in comparison to the warmth of you. He’d think he was wasting his time ever leaving. But to acknowledge the truth of that is to doom himself to needing another. 

You are very easy to need, after all. 

He only really lets the excitement get to him when his knuckles are rapping on wood, when the door’s flung open and he’s not alone anymore. You’re quick to grab him, hold him and squeeze him like a lost doll that’s just been returned.

Sam could get used to it, it’s why he pushes you gently back by your shoulders. 

“Your hair’s different,” he comments, prompting you to reach up and touch the new cut. You give a one shoulder shrug. “I like it.” 

“And you look like you haven’t washed yours since you left,” you reply. Your smile turns a little cutting, but he’s just happy to see it again. All this is still happening on your doorstep, Sam shifts and tries not to look too defensive. 

“That’s not exactly true,” he replies, looking sheepish and trying to peer around your shoulder. Let me in, he thinks, I want to go home. 

Sammy does look rough, though, always does when he’s come back from unfriendly tumbles in foreign parts. 

“Come on,” you say, not reading his mind so much as his expression. He looks hopeless and sweet, in need of a bath and other things. He follows without a word, only a wide smile. 

There’s no need to describe in self-flagellating detail just how deeply each of you was missed. You could mumble that your nights were filled with dreams of him, so many that you barely needed to strain to think of the feeling of his hands on you. 

He could tell you that he wanted to come back, to pick you up and spin you around just to return to whatever part of the world he was plundering. Sam wanted you for a companion and not only in the abstract sense. 

But you touch him very literally now, glancing back and offering slow smiles that make his insides bubble dangerously. On god, he didn’t look at anyone else while abroad and can bet you didn’t, either. 

Patience is a virtue he doesn’t have, but by the time he’s wanting to grab for you again you’re in the doorway of your bathroom. You’re undressing him anyway and yourself with more control than he would ask of himself. 

But then there’s a kiss, a warm connection that has his head spinning violently. You giggle a centimetre from his mouth when you pull away, he lunges in search of your lips that are not given. Instead, you draw a bath and leave him to finish shucking his clothes. 

He’s not bleeding anywhere new, at least. You’re confronted only by old scars. There’s a pang, perhaps, of self-consciousness that eats at Sam. It’s easily dismissed, you look at him like someone unable to see any physical imperfections he might have. All there is in your eyes is appreciation, a hunger that he knows too well.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how things went?” Sam asks. He admires the curve of your rear as you bend to check the water temperature. 

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” you ask, glancing at him with a grin. Sam makes a face and you’re laughing again. “Tell me all about it, baby.” 

He shares, the story falling from him like he was waiting for permission to tell. Here, behind two sets of closed doors he feels comfortable enough to regale you. The whole affair is bookended by uncomfortable flights in Sully’s plane. 

Somewhere in the middle, you urge him towards a tub filled with relaxingly warm water. Your back turns to the spout, looking at him with that wounding fondness that makes Sam wonder how he functioned without it.

You take up the task of scrubbing, seeing as you’re the one who forced him into a bath as opposed to your bed. He’s more than willing to allow it, you make yourself comfortable between his knees and try not to let your eye catch on too sharp a distraction. 

He hums, appreciating the look of you in the water. Some of the suds slosh over the sides, but you don’t care. You’re happy to steal kisses, heated looks, soft caresses and all of it under the pretence of getting him clean. 

Sam’s been stirring in a way most familiar since you took your top off. It all comes to a head when you reach between his legs. Poor thing, you think, he’s been very patient. 

And you can tell by the way he groans that he’s missed more than just the sight of you. His hips buck, just once like he can’t control himself. It sends water falling to the bathroom floor, but you’re not even mad enough to glare. 

“Hey,” you start. Sam doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, but at some point he did. They open again and he’s face-to-face with your teasing smile. “You gonna pass out on me, old man?” 

Sam grips the porcelain sides of the bathtub, he pushes himself up until he’s sitting. The half-lazy lean feels wrong for homecoming sex, he reaches for you. You let him touch, grab, pull. You lie against his chest, one hand still working over his stiff length.

“You act like you didn’t get any action in the middle of nowhere,” you tell him, lifting your head enough to make eye contact. That sultry stare of his falters just for a second, he kisses your forehead. 

“Eh, not enough hours in the day,” he replies. 

“I thought Sam Drake could get some anywhere,” you reply. 

“Well, he can certainly get it here,” Sam gives a ridiculous wiggle of his eyebrows, making you break and grin like an idiot. 

His neck’s begging for kisses and bites, you give Sam what he’s clearly needing and are rewarded with a thankful groan. He does everything in his power to give you the best access, his rough hands working over your body and trying to find the best place to return the affection. 

He squeezes your hips, the tops of your thighs. Sam grabs at your back and runs his fingers over your chest. Encouraged by a moan, he takes a handful of your breast and tries to coax more from you. Freely, you give it, too happy to have him back in your arms to care about teasing. 

Sam has the benefit of being very good at this, rolling his thumb over your nipple with a gentleness he affords nothing else. He touches you like every kind thought and act has been saved just for this moment. Part of you believes it. 

“We gonna do this right here?” he asks, pushing his other hand down your front. You part your knees without him needing to ask, Sam’s eyes are glazed and lustful. He knows where his fingers need to be. 

“I’m still deciding,” you reply, “the point was to get you clean.” 

“You started it,” he reminds you, “though I am irresistible, I guess.” 

“First time back should be in a bed, don’t you think?” you ask in turn, Sam rolls his eyes. 

“I figured we were gonna get there eventually,” he looks at your lips without shame, he kisses you in the space between his thoughts. “We can have both.” 

“You’re not going to skip out in the night?” you try, seeking to get another smile from him. The opposite happens, Sam’s face falls. 

It’s a momentary crack in the wall, but his hand at your breast wraps around your back. You’re crushed against his chest again, you can hear his heartbeat against your cheek.

“I’ll take that as a no,” you hazard, Sam grunts in agreement. 

“Got no reason to go, babe,” he says but the serious moment has passed. There’s a laugh in his voice. “Here’s pretty good. If I play my cards right, I get breakfast in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” you’re grinning too, now. But not moving. You stay, enjoying being held as much as you enjoy holding him. “We’ll see about that.” 

“Babe,” Sam says, his grip eases up on you, “kiss me.” 

This one’s neither soft nor giving. You bite his lip, you drag your hand over his cock until Sam’s whining against your lips. But he’d have it no other way. His middle finger presses against where he knows he’ll be able to pull a reaction from you. 

You’re almost frustrated that he won’t just haul off and finger you. Instead, he teases around your clit with full knowledge that you want more. 

Sometimes he forces your hand, insists you reveal a little vulnerability before he’ll grant any relief. You drop your head to his neck, breaking the roughest kiss yet and trying your luck there. You roll your hips against his hand. 

You know the magic word, he thinks, it’s just a matter of time. 

“God dammit,” you hiss after standing it for a minute more, “please. Come on, I said it.” 

“You sure did,” Sam replies. He’s not a cruel man in the slightest, nor does he want more than that first, desperate admission. He scissors two fingers inside of you, skipping out on gentleness in favour of desperation. 

It’s exactly what you need and you moan his name to tell him so. Better than music, he thinks. Better than anything that can make noise. 

More water’s on the floor than in the tub, now and it’s going tepid. But you don’t care, you need him now in even unfavourable conditions. You adjust where you are, moving to straddle him and caring very little for his desire to tease you a little more. 

Sam lets you in his lap, he’s not entirely sure how much longer he can last as it is. But it’s too embarrassing to admit that, he’ll settle for playing the role of indulgent lover. With your body now closer to him than before, he can touch you a little easier. He withdraws his hand from between your legs to hold on to your hips. They move regardless of his efforts. 

You lift, rock and settle where you need to sit without his help. Though Sam does like to think he grounds you, keeps you safe, there’s very little required of him when you sink down on to his cock. He has the manners not to stay quiet about it, at least. 

Sam grips the tub and you, he makes sure the neighbours know just exactly who lives here. You make sure they know who’s come home. 

He rolls his hips up against yours, slowing only when you grab him by the hair. He got what he wanted before, now it’s his turn. 

“Please?” he asks, already breathless. His forehead’s kissed and you set the pace. 

Sam has an affinity for taking the lord’s name in vain when it comes to fucking you. There’s no thought or care put in to protection, you chase every sensible thought from his head. He loves every second of it. 

Jesus, you missed him. Even as he does everything in his power not to scratch up your hips, even as he sits forward and puts his head to your neck this time. He’s weird about doing you harm, about finding the right places to be vulnerable. But he is, vulnerable, that is. He holds you tight and says some really unexpected things between kisses to your jugular. 

You’re almost certain he says he loves you. That makes you grab him tighter. He might be afraid of the l-word, but you’ve come to like the idea a little more than you originally thought. Let him love you, let him be scared of it. You’ll be here when he’s ready to face it. 

“Love you, too,” you reply. It just slips out, but he doesn’t seize up or stop. Thank god. 

Somewhere in the after of saying it back, you come. It’s complicated by emotional uncertainty, perhaps, but still pretty fucking good for the first time you’ve had him in months. Sam laughs at the noise you make, the half-addled shout that melts to a sigh. 

“Did good, huh?” he asks. It’s rhetorical.

He pulls out and you lie against him. You’re lifeless and boneless while he finishes himself off, with no expectation that you help. He’s got this, he says so himself before kissing the top of your head. He’s got you. 

Sam’s rarely in his element when it comes to taking care of anyone else. But you showed him a good time, that’s for goddamn sure. He can find it in himself to be decent for as long as it takes to get you dried off. 

Perhaps not as long as it would take to mop the bathroom floor, however. He’s not quite there yet.


End file.
